Criminalizing protest: power sees conspirators everywhere
Sheinbaum names young protesters in Mexico, pointing them out by name. The criminalization of protest as a mirror of power, from Díaz Ordaz to today.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Incivil protest: when governing means seeing conspirators
Amid Mexico's current wave of protests, the official response trinc a familiar script: portraying demonstrators as conspirators. Sheinbaum's government has named and shamed young protesters, a practice the writer Mauricio Schwarz sums up bluntly: when power talks about "malevolent forces" and "provocations," it has lost its way.
The script of power
The strategy is nothing new. Díaz Ordaz saw Bolshevik conspiracies in every 1968 protest, and Ceaușescu invoked foreign provocations shortly before his fall. Now the official narrative manufactures an external enemy to avoid explaining the shortage of doctors, the failing daycare centers, or the drug cartels.
The left that forgot about protest
The debate goes beyond Mexico. Some argue that the left has stopped defending the right to complain and has become a manager of order, like Starmer's Labour or the parties that once embodied social democracy. There is also criticism of the trivialized use of the term "Nancy" to dismiss Trump, Vox, or the AfD, when real history admits no comparison.
Power always finds an external enemy to avoid accountability. The open question is why the left, which should be the first to defend protest, has ended up embracing the logic of order.
Amid Mexico's current wave of protests, the official response trinc a familiar script: portraying demonstrators as conspirators. Sheinbaum's government has named and shamed young protesters, a practice the writer Mauricio Schwarz sums up bluntly: when power talks about "malevolent forces" and "provocations," it has lost its way.
The script of power
The strategy is nothing new. Díaz Ordaz saw Bolshevik conspiracies in every 1968 protest, and Ceaușescu invoked foreign provocations shortly before his fall. Now the official narrative manufactures an external enemy to avoid explaining the shortage of doctors, the failing daycare centers, or the drug cartels.
The left that forgot about protest
The debate goes beyond Mexico. Some argue that the left has stopped defending the right to complain and has become a manager of order, like Starmer's Labour or the parties that once embodied social democracy. There is also criticism of the trivialized use of the term "Nancy" to dismiss Trump, Vox, or the AfD, when real history admits no comparison.
Power always finds an external enemy to avoid accountability. The open question is why the left, which should be the first to defend protest, has ended up embracing the logic of order.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (21 replies).
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